


What Ifs and Could Haves (and hearts full of regret)

by Sanctuaria



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: B.A.R.F. | Binarily Augmented Retro Framing, Canon Compliant, Cheeseburgers, Dum-E - Freeform, F/M, Legos, Morgan and what could have been, Natasha is Monopoly Queen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-23 06:30:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23273758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanctuaria/pseuds/Sanctuaria
Summary: “You were gone really long, Daddy,” she tells him, in case he doesn’t know.“Oh yeah? How long was I gone?” Daddy asks her, bouncing her slightly on his lap.“This much.” She holds her hands out as far apart as they can go to show him.“Oh, wow, that is a lot,” he says, and she nods in agreement. “Did Happy at least take you for cheeseburgers while I was gone?”A look at what might have happened if Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff survived Endgame.
Relationships: Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe) & Tony Stark, Natasha Romanov & Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 68





	What Ifs and Could Haves (and hearts full of regret)

Morgan pulls the bedsheets up to her chin but stubbornly shakes her head.

“What?” Happy says in the gentle teasing voice he uses just for her. “You want me to check _again_?”

She nods. “Yes, p’ease.”

“Okay. One more time.” Happy gets up from the chair next to her bed and leans down, lifting the layer of cloth that hides the monsters under her bed from view.

“D’you see them?” Morgan wants to know. She snuggles down deeper under the blankets for more protection. “Are they scary?”

“Nope. No monsters,” Happy promises her, standing up again. He moves to turn out the light.

“When are Mommy and Daddy coming back?” she asks before he can. Happy stops and doesn’t say anything for a moment and Morgan feels her stomach get all hot and tight. “They’ll be back soon, sweetheart,” he says finally.

“When?”

He looks sad as he says it, and Morgan doesn’t know why. “As soon as they can.”

“ _Morgan_?” a voice calls, and she sits straight up in bed.

“MOMMY!” She throws herself toward the side of the bed closest to the door but her feet somehow get tangled in the blankets, trapping her. Morgan kicks to free herself, because Mommy’s finally home, and almost tumbles headfirst to the floor.

Strong hands catch her around the middle, tickling her a little, and she wriggles and laughs as Happy scoops her up, depositing her back on the bed. Before she can make another escape attempt, Mommy is in the doorway. She looks tired, and her hair is a little messy like Morgan’s always is in the morning before she sits her down and makes her brush it, but she’s smiling and hugs Morgan anyway. Morgan throws her arms around her, all thoughts of bedtime forgotten, just so very happy that Mommy is back from her trip. Mommy is not soft like usual, and Morgan looks down to see that she’s wearing Daddy’s anniversary present instead of her clothes, the blue armor that Morgan likes to play with in the garage when she tricks Daddy into playing Hide and Seek.

Gentle hands brush over her head and Mommy finally releases her, peppering Morgan’s face with kisses that make her squirm and pull away, laughing. “Where’s Daddy?” Morgan asks her, cheeks flushed with joy.

“Right here, Maguna.” She squeals with excitement at the sight of Daddy too, right behind her. After a moment the excitement is tempered by confusion, because Daddy doesn’t immediately come over to hug her and is sitting in a strange chair with large wheels. A person that Morgan recognizes vaguely pushes the chair, maneuvering it carefully through the doorway, and once it’s through Mommy helps him up. Daddy leans on her heavily as he staggers to the bed, but when he sinks down on it his arms are open and Morgan throws herself into them anyway, hugging him tight.

“You were gone really long, Daddy,” she tells him, in case he doesn’t know.

“Oh yeah? How long was I gone?” Daddy asks her, bouncing her slightly on his lap.

“This much.” She holds her hands out as far apart as they can go to show him.

“Oh, wow, that is a lot,” he says, and she nods in agreement. “Did Happy at least take you for cheeseburgers while I was gone?”

She ducks her head, whispering, “Twice.”

“Hey, that was a supposed to be a secret, kid!” Happy complains from behind them, but Morgan only giggles, kicking her feet.

“Twice! I guess we can forget going this week,” Daddy says, waggling his eyebrows at her.

“No!” Laughing, she kicks again, accidentally hitting Daddy’s arm with her foot, and is surprised when he winces. “Daddy, are you hurt?”

“Just a little,” he says. “Nothing you need to worry about though, ‘kay?”

“Want me to kiss it better?” she offers, because that’s what Daddy does when she gets a boo-boo and it always makes hers feel a lot better.

He pauses, then smiles widely. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

Morgan takes stock of him, then reaches up to kiss his cheek, where a dark mark stands out on his skin. Then she stands to reach a cut with little vertical lines in it on his forehead. “More?” she asks.

“Nope, I think you got ‘em all.” Daddy hugs her again. “Thank you.”

“There’s someone we want you to meet before we say goodnight,” Mommy says, and Morgan looks up.

“Morgan, this is Peter,” Tony tells her.

The teenager who had pushed Daddy’s chair holds out his hand. “Hi, Morgan, it’s so nice to meet you.”

“Hi, Peter,” she says, and she knows who he is. He’s the one in the photo that Daddy keeps high up on the counter next to the glass bowl she’s not allowed to touch because she broke the other one that one time trying to rescue her paper airplane. He’s the one Mommy and Daddy talk about sometimes in hushed voices that she hears when she sneaks downstairs to see if Daddy will give her another juice pop.

Morgan shakes his hand enthusiastically, her fingers barely fitting around one of his, but he doesn’t seem to mind. She turns back to Daddy. “Now you don’t have to be sad anymore.”

“No, I don’t,” Daddy says, hugging her tight again. He looks at her and Mommy and Peter. “I’ve got everything I need right here.”

* * *

“Knock, knock,” a voice says, and Morgan looks up from where she’s sitting on the floor of her room with Peter. He has the Hulk action figure in his hand, and she has Scarlet Witch, who is using her powers to make Hulk do somersaults across the carpet. Morgan thinks its pretty funny, and Peter does too.

He’s nice like that.

“Black Wid—I mean, Natash—Agent Romanoff?” Peter asks, suddenly red in the face. He looks like a tomato, and Morgan almost laughs, but Mommy says its mean to laugh at people and she doesn’t want to be mean to Peter.

“Natasha is fine, Peter,” the woman poking her head in the door says like she’s told him so a million times. “Can we come in?”

Morgan nods, setting Scarlet Witch down and watching as Natasha comes in with three other people that she doesn’t know behind her. They’re kids too, but all older than her, except maybe the boy in the back who holds onto another girl’s hand.

“This is Cooper, Lila, and Nate,” Natasha introduces them. “They’re Clint’s kids—you remember my partner, Clint?” Morgan nods again because she does, vaguely—not as well as she knows Tasha because Tasha was one of the few people who visited their house besides Happy and Uncle Rhodey before she met Peter—but she remembers he had a cool bow that he let her hold, just like Daddy lets her play with some of his tools. “Do you mind if they play with you guys for a bit?”

Morgan considers, then selects an action figure from the pile. “D’you want my Uncle Rhodey? He shoots big guns and has cool armor like my mommy and daddy.”

The oldest boy smiles and takes the figure from her, sitting next to Peter on the carpet. “Yeah, War Machine’s awesome.”

“Can I have Auntie Nat?” the girl asks, plopping down beside her brother. Natasha rolls her eyes but ruffles Lila’s hair before she leaves the room, and Morgan hands her the Black Widow figure.

“Which one do you want, Nate?” Peter asks the youngest boy.

“Sp’derman,” Nate says shyly, and Peter grins, looking super excited.

Morgan leans forward conspiratorially, using her best secret whisper voice, “Did you know that _he’s_ Spider-Man?”

“ _Morgan!_ ”

She giggles, clapping a hand over her mouth. “Oops!” She shakes her head. “He’s not Spider-Man. At all.”

Peter sighs but ruffles her hair anyway, like Tasha did to Lila. “You’re bad at keeping secrets.”

She gives him her best pout face. “I’m on’y six!”

He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah.”

“So you are Spider-Man?” Nate asks. “That’s so cool. My dad is Hawkeye, so you’re probably friends.”

“Yeah, he’s cool,” Peter says. They play with their action figures for a bit—Scarlet Witch teams up with Black Widow to fight an evil version of Captain Marvel and Captain America, voiced by Peter in his best raspy villain voice. Just when Spider-Man deals the final blow to knock out Cap, Peter drops the action figure, looking excited. “Hey, wait. I know what we should do.”

“What?” Morgan wants to know.

“You remember that custom, 2000-piece Lego set your dad built you for your birthday? We finally have enough people to help build it!”

“Did you say Legos?” Nate asks. “I wanna build!”

“What’s the set?” Lila says. Morgan runs to bed, pulling the large box with Stark Industries stamped across the top out from underneath it.

“It’s Daddy’s workshop in New York,” Morgan answers, tugging on the lid. It’s pretty heavy, so Cooper helps her lift it off, and the five of them peer into the box together.

“Are those mini Iron Man suits?” Nate gasps.

“They light up and everything,” Peter says with a grin.

“Awesome!”

Morgan extracts the manual, a book super-thick compared to the rest of the smaller, regular sets already decorating her room. There’s a sticky note on it, mostly in Mommy’s handwriting but also Daddy’s at the bottom.

_Happy birthday, Morgan!_

_Love, Mommy and Daddy_

_P.S. The suits fly._

“THE SUITS FLY?!” All five of them are excited now, and Morgan begins distributing bags of Legos out of the box while Cooper flips through the instruction manual.

When Natasha, Clint, and the other kids’ mom show up to let them know it’s time to go home, every single one of them protests.

“Just five more minutes?” Lila asks from where she is fastening on the metal helmet to the Mark 42 suit.

“Not yet, Mom, we haven’t gotten Dum-E built yet!”

“Please, Mama?”

“Can they stay the night?” Morgan asks, making her eyes big and wide in the way that always works on Daddy. (It works less on Mommy. Morgan will have to get better at it.)

“Normally, I would say yes, but you have a big day tomorrow and Tony and Pepper want to make sure you get a good night’s sleep,” their mom answers.

“Oh.” Morgan’s stomach gives a little flip-flop inside.

“But we can come over again next week for a whole day so you guys can finish it?” she offers.

“That sounds great!”

“I can make it ’til next week anyway, so works for me,” Peter says, looking relieved they’re not going to work on it without him. Peter’s in college now, so Morgan doesn’t get to see him as much as before.

“How about Saturday?” Clint suggests.

“Sounds good,” Peter agrees.

“All right, up you three, so we can go ask Tony and Pepper,” their mom says. After helping Morgan put it all back in the box carefully so nothing will break while they’re gone, the six of them including Peter file out the door, calling and waving goodbye.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” Natasha says after them, coming in to sit next to Morgan. She gives her a look, the one that makes Morgan feel like she knows exactly what’s going on in Morgan’s head, except that’s okay because she trusts Tasha. “You excited for tomorrow?”

Morgan shrugs her shoulders. “I dunno.”

“I thought you liked ballet?” Tasha has a strange look on her face, almost scared, and Morgan answers quickly.

“I do! When I do it with you,” she says shyly. “There’s gonna be a lot of people there tomorrow. Right?”

The strange look disappears from Natasha’s face. “Not too many, _malyutka_ ,” Tasha promises her. “You don’t need to be nervous.”

“But I am,” Morgan says.

Natasha doesn’t dismiss her, just nods. “Okay. What are you scared of?”

“What if I fall?” she asks.

“You won’t,” Tasha tells her. “You’re amazing at it, Morgan. But if you want, we can practice some more right here? Just you and me.”

“Really?” Morgan jumps up, eyes shining. She runs to her closet where the ballet shoes Tasha gave her are, beautiful light pink ones with a darker pink bow in the middle. “But…I thought you had to go back with Clint and his family.”

“I’ll catch up with them later,” Natasha tells her, giving her a soft smile. “I always have time for you.”

* * *

“Dad, come in here, I need your help!”

“Oh?” her dad lifts his eyebrows. “Is there a boy?”

“What, Dad, gross!”

“A girl?”

“Dad, stop it.” Exasperated, she tugs him by the arm fully into her room. She releases him, then quickly shuts the door behind them.

“What’s all the secrecy?” he asks.

“I need you to look at something,” Morgan says, leading him to her desk. It’s a bit of a mess, binder paper and graph paper and various electronics shoved helter-skelter across it, but she pushes all that to the side to show him the blueprint paper underneath, onto which she’s sketched her idea in thin white lines.

“Hmm,” her dad hums as he picks it up. She can immediately tell that he’s switched into Inventor Mode™, which is good because that’s the kind of advice she’s looking for right now. He’s quiet for several minutes as he studies her design, while Morgan shifts back and forth on her feet. Finally, he looks up. “You designed this?”

“Yeah,” she tells him. “Do you think it’ll work?”

“Do I think it’ll work? Maguna, I think it’s genius,” he tells her, setting down the blueprints just in time to sweep her up into his arms. Before he’s even let go he’s picking up a black pen from her desktop, reaching over her shoulder to scribble something in the margins. She lets him go, watching proudly as he makes another note somewhere else, and leans down to see he’s suggested a different kind of gear for the motor that’ll make it spin a bit quieter and one of her mom’s favorite kinds of flowers. “She’s gonna love it,” he tells her. “You should win the prize for the best Mother’s Day daughter, and if that prize doesn’t exist, I’ll make it, because you deserve to win it.” He looks down at it again. “Seriously, you came up with this on your own?” Her dad affixes her with a mock-accusatory stare. “Have you been staying up past your bedtime?”

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to,” she tells him with a grin.

“Sass!” Her dad looks around comically. “That was sass. Did anyone else witness that?”

“No witnesses here,” she teases him. “Tasha taught me well.”

“I knew I never should have let Natashalie near you,” he mutters, but Morgan knows it’s an empty threat.

“Anyway, I wanted your help with this part,” Morgan points at the one section of the design she hasn’t quite figured out yet.

“Well, let’s see,” her dad squints at the page, then looks back at her. “You know where we could really figure this out? My lab.”

“Like, not just the garage? The one in New York?” Morgan asks excitedly. She hasn’t been to New York a lot, because the paparazzi sucks and the lab is “dangerous.”

“Yup.” He grins at her. “You want to add one more secret to this Mother’s Day surprise?”

“Yes!” She hops up and down a little. “Can we stop for cheeseburgers on the way?”

He rolls his eyes like it wasn’t even a question. “Of course. And on the drive over, you can help me brainstorm what I am getting Pep for Mother’s Day, because apparently you inherited your mom’s planning skills.”

“Not strawberries,” she teases, sticking her tongue out at him.

He sighs. “That was _one_ time.”

Morgan bounds toward the door. “Don’t worry, I’ll tell her you helped, Dad! So even if your present sucks she won’t be mad.”

“It was your brilliant idea, Maguna.” He shakes his head, drawing her into his arms again. “You don’t have to give me any credit.”

She smiles, mischievous. “How about 12%?”

* * *

“Cake!” someone calls from downstairs. “Who wants cake?”

Natasha lifts her eyebrows, but nobody dares move. Lila rolls the dice, fails to get doubles, and puts her head in her hands. Cooper is next, rolling a 7 and pulling up at Atlantic Avenue and handing over the cash to purchase the property. Nate, the banker, sighs but accepts it, handing him the third property card to complete the set. “Finally,” he sighs. “Now at least two of us has a chance against Auntie Nat.”

Tasha smiles at him evilly, then rolls the dice herself. Her piece scoots right past Cooper’s newly owned holdings and ends up at free parking, where she rakes in several hundred to add to her considerable pile. It’s Morgan next, and she picks up the dice with a sense of foreboding—sure enough, they take her squarely to the side of the board that is unequivocally Natasha’s territory. And it’s the dark-blue-and-green expensive side too, because of course it is.

“That’ll be $1500,” Natasha tells her sweetly. Morgan, who owns two properties and $381 to her name, sighs and hands over everything, leaning over to team up with Peter next to her now that she’s been bankrupted. “How nice of you to visit, I hope you’ll come again!” Morgan sticks her tongue out at her, and Tasha laughs.

“Cake?” her dad pushes open the door. “What are you all doing up here that no one comes running down for cake?” His gaze falls on the Monopoly board. “Oh.”

“Natasha _always_ wins,” Peter explains. “This is like our fourth game this month.”

“So we have to keep an eye on her and make sure she’s not cheating,” Nate continues, casting her a dirty glance.

Tony passes out the cake, then examines the board. “Whoa. Who put all the hotels on green, blue, and purple?”

“Natasha,” they all answer in unison. The spy’s smile only widens.

Her dad laughs.

“I’m out already,” Morgan sighs, standing. “Thanks for the cake, Dad.”

“You’re welcome. It’s your graduation party, after all,” he smiles at her. “Interesting way to spend it, losing at Monopoly to Natasha.”

“ _She must be taken down_ ,” Lila growls from behind her.

“What Lila said,” Morgan says, hugging her dad. “Besides, I have all of you here—I don’t need anything else.”

“I’m so proud of you,” he says into her hair. “And—and not just for graduating high school at sixteen, but just—being who you are. You’re the best thing I’ve ever done.” There are tears in his eyes and she knows he means it, not that she's ever doubted.

* * *

Morgan swallows, diploma clenched in her fist. “ _End program._ ”

Natasha fades first, the smile freezing on her face as her whole body goes rigid, unmoving. Then she shimmers a glittering blue before disappearing completely. The kids’ play table follows, Monopoly blinking out of existence off the top and then the entire thing beamed away in another flash. Cooper, Lila, Nate, and Peter all fade as well, until it’s just her father at the corner of the frame, his arms not quite fully pulled back from when he embraced her, the gentle, loving look in his eyes for one second frozen in time. “I love you 3000, kiddo,” he says before disappearing completely. The blue light shuts off, retracting back into the corner of her room where the Binary Augmented Retro-Framing emitter is, leaving the room darker and emptier for its absence.

Morgan blinks, looks around. There is no custom LEGO set on her shelf below the window, and her desk is cluttered with designs but not with notes and barely-legible scribbles written in a different hand along the margins. There is no set of tiny ballet shoes with a pink ribbon high up in the closet. She blinks again, swallows again, trying to hold back the tears—

Because that’s not what happened.


End file.
